Gourmet Christmas Hampers 2012

Merry Christmas everyone!

We hope you all had a gorgeous Christmas and now getting a chance to relax (and let the kids play with their toys!) We had a lovely Christmas day with the great company of family and plenty of delicious food. Now we've ventured off to sunny Echuca for some chill time.

So no recipes today but I'll share my efforts of making my gourmet Christmas Hamper with recipes to follow.  The special few received some Healthy Muesli, Seaweed Salt, Pistacio Dukka, home grown and cured Olive Tapenade, Chocolate Salami, Nut Butter and Pistacio and Cranberry Biscotti.  Some rustic labels and wrapping and it looked rather cute.

So hope you all enjoyed your day.
xx Veggie Mum

Pistachio Dukka

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

And getting rather busy!  This morning I was walking Finn and the dog by 6am, then took Summer to Kinder, went to a job interview, came back to the kinder performance / graduation, came home to make the kids lunch, booked our first camping trip with friends, planned a few Christmas catchups then looked at the clock and it wasn’t even 12!  Only at Christmas hey.

I’ve been busy making some home made food gifts too.  I’d better not give too many secrets away but my favourite so far is my Pistachio Dukka.  Delicious with bread and olive oil, sprinkled on hummus, or to coat tofu or perhaps salmon.  Pistachios just sing Christmas and will be the feature of many of my gifts.

Pistachio Dukka

150g pistachios
100g hazelnuts

100g sesame seeds
35g coriander seeds
30g cumin seeds
1 tsp rock salt
1 tsp peppercorns
½ tsp each nutmeg and cloves

• Place nuts, sesame seeds, coriander and cumin seeds into Thermomix bowl and dry roast for 8 minutes at 100° on speed 1
• Allow to cool then add salt, peppercorns, nutmeg and cloves and chop on Turbo for 1 second at a time until a coarser mixture is achieved
• Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to use
• Enjoy getting ready for Christmas!